BMC unveils highest ever budget at Rs 59,954 crore focusing on health, infra, women safety

Mumbai, Feb 2 (PTI) No new taxes were proposed on Friday in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's Rs 59,954.75-crore budget for 2024-25, the highest ever, as it made special provisions for the coastal road project and proposed four new schemes, one of them for providing medicines free to patients at civic hospitals for which Rs 1,200 crore was set aside.

The expenditure on the health budget was hiked to Rs 7,191 crore from Rs 6,309 crore in 2023-24 and a provision of Rs 340 crore was made for upgradation of footpaths, lanes and bylanes. A sum of Rs 100 crore was allocated for implementation of a scheme for women's security.

The budgetary estimates were 10.5 per cent more than the 2023-24 amount of Rs 54,256.07 crore.

The administration of India's richest civic body presented the budget for the next fiscal to municipal commissioner-cum-administrator Iqbal Singh Chahal at the BMC headquarters in south Mumbai.

Chahal, a senior IAS officer, was appointed the BMC administrator by the Maharashtra government after the five-year term of elected corporators ended in March 2022.

“The budget estimates for the financial year 2024-25 are proposed at Rs 59,954.75 crore, which exceeds the budget estimates of 2023-24 -- that is Rs 54,256.07 crore -- by 10.5 per cent,” said the budget document.

This was only the second time after 1985 that the BMC administration has presented the budget to an administrator. In normal course, the budget is presented before the civic body's standing committee, which comprises elected corporators.

The civic body has not proposed any increase in existing tax rates or levied any fresh taxes for FY25, as per the budget document.

Addressing a press conference after the budget presentation, Chahal said of the nearly Rs 60,000 crore budget for 2024-25, Rs 31,774 crore is capital expenditure, while Rs 28,121 is revenue expenditure.

He said capital expenditure has increased by 25.5 per cent and revenue expenditure by 14.16 per cent over the FY 24 figures.

Special provisions were made in the budget for infrastructure projects -- coastal road-Marine Drive to Worli stretch (Rs 2,900 crore), Versova to Bhayandar corridor (Rs 1,350 crore), Goregaon-Mulund Link Road (Rs 1,870 crore), bridges (Rs 1,610 crore) and rejuvenation of rivers (Rs 357 crore).

A sum of Rs 3497.82 crore was allocated for primary education and Rs 1,055 crore was earmarked for a shelter scheme.

The civic body announced to launch four new schemes -- Chief Minister's Zero Prescription Policy, which will be implemented at civic hospitals; Dharmaveer Anand Dighe Divyang Financial Assistance Scheme (for persons with disabilities); Hinduhridaysamrat Balasaheb Thackeray Urban Greening Project; and Mumbai Mahila Suraksha Abhiyan.

Chahal claimed Zero Prescription Policy is "the first of its kind in the whole world," and under it, no outside medicines will be prescribed to patients (who are residents of Mumbai) and they will get them free at civic hospitals.

"The scheme is expected to incur an estimated expenditure of Rs 1,200 crore," Chahal said, adding the civic body will purchase generic medicines for this programme.

Chahal said under Dharmveer Anand Dighe Divyang Financial Assistance Scheme, out of 59,112 citizens with disabilities (above 18 years) -- 42,078 with yellow ration cards and 17,034 with blue ration cards -- will be given Rs 6,000 and Rs 18,000 financial aid, respectively, every six months.

Under Hinduhridaysamrat Balasaheb Thackeray Urban Greening Project, 5 lakh bamboos will be cultivated in the city. Initially a 6 feet wide and 6 km long bamboo wall will be created alongside Eastern Express Highway between Kannamwar Nagar and Bhandup in eastern Mumbai.

The civic commissioner said under Mumbai Mahila Suraksha Abhiyan, the BMC will develop a mobile application through which women can lodge complaints or report cases of injustice to them. Emergency response teams would immediately reach out to such women and provide necessary assistance to them.

According to him, the civic body has Rs 1.94 lakh crore of liabilities, but it has done detailed planning to manage them.

The BMC will set up Senior Citizens Recreation Centres. These facilities will be first set up on a pilot basis at seven locations, where senior citizens can spend 1-2 hours on recreational activities like watching TV and playing carrom, among others.

Chahal announced a Rs 1 lakh per year financial grant to 16,000 self-help groups, for which a provision of Rs 160 crore was made in the budget. As many as 2 lakh women are expected to benefit from the scheme.

The civic body has undertaken the Chief Minister's Deep Cleaning Programme since December 2023, and the budget has made a provision of Rs 80 crore for the purchase of machinery for cleaning roads and footpaths, he said.

He said for dust mitigation in Mumbai, the civic body has been cleaning an average of 700 km of roads every day, for which it has deployed 225 tankers.

Under the Mumbai beautification project, a total of 1,385 works were undertaken. Out these, 1,192 works have been completed. A total expenditure of Rs 766 crore has been incurred till date on beautification works, said the IAS officer.

He said the civic body has issued tenders worth Rs 800 crore for making Eastern Expressway and Western Expressway access controlled. Under the project, eight junctions on these expressways will be made signal-free.

He said around 38 lakh people have taken benefit of 202 'Aapla Dawakhana' (clinics) of the BMC and 60 more such centres will be added in the next fiscal.

The initiative provides essential medical services like health check-ups, medicines, investigations and diagnostics free, to people. PTI